15 Jul 2015 · 18 min
Dr. Aziz breaks down why confidence fails: we stack excuses into stories into fear. The fix is action. He walks through setting confidence targets and offers exercises for dating, work, and leadership.
Chapters
Do you spend much of your time hesitating, holding back, maybe doubting yourself, not taking action unless you're certain and really feeling limited or stuck in your life? If so, today's episode is going to help you profoundly. We're going to focus on how to unleash your confidence, how to unleash a sense of power, strength, courage, certainty and drive in you so you can feel confident and go after what you want in life without hesitating, with a sense of boldness and courage.
Coming to you from the center for Social Confidence in Portland, Oregon. Welcome to Shrink for the shy guy, helping men everywhere go from social anxiety to social domination with your host, Dr. Aziz.
Welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we're gonna about how to unleash your confidence. And if you want to dive into the show and send messages and just follow the whole thing, go to shrinkforthshy guy.com you can also go to facebook.com social confidence and those are ways to stay in touch with us and stay in touch with me. And I'd love to hear about your successes, your challenges, hear about your journey, because that's absolutely what it is. And today is going to be like rocket fuel for your journey. It's how to unleash your confidence. And many of you know that I have a program called Confidence Unleashed, and many of you know that an entirely new version is just coming out. We're in the launch period for that right now. And it is, I mean, we got incredible feedback on the first version of Confidence Unleashed. And that's cool. And I'm always, I want to have the biggest impact that I can. That's why this show is always getting better. That's why that program, I took all of the feedback I got and saw what was working. And then I took everything that had worked in sessions with people, in one on ones in groups. I saw what the most powerful stuff was in weekend intensives, one on one weekends and group weekends. I saw firsthand what was having the biggest impact, making the quickest, most powerful shift. And, and then I put that all into the new videos, into the new version of Confidence Unleashed. And I'm going to share some of the gems, some of the top, best stuff from that program with you today for free so you can apply it in your life and start unleashing your confidence. And the first thing that we need to do about unleashing your confidence, first of all, let's do this. In the program, we talk about confidence targets because it's often the case I'll do a maximize your confidence session with someone. Or I'll sometimes do these offers to my list where people can do sessions with me, and they're excited to talk with me. They're like, oh, I saw you on YouTube. And they're really excited. And like, great, let's dive into it. Because people, I don't know, for some reason, they know my story, which is why they relate to me. But then on some level, they don't believe my story. They're like, you. I mean, yeah, it's inspiring, but come on, you're not. You weren't really shy. And I was like, dude, I was. And I still deal with this stuff. Right? I mean, I'm just applying what I teach. Anyway, they're all excited to talk with me, and then we dive in and they're like, okay, here's my 17 problems. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait. Problems are great. We're going to get to problems. And we could spend five hours talking about problems and not getting anywhere. Because here, take. What I'd like you to do right now is take your right hand and put it right in front of your face. Don't touch your face, but put it right in your face, like maybe about an inch away. Okay, good. Now keep it in front of your face. And then turn your head, keeping your hand right in front of you. And then look up, keeping your hand right in front of you. And look down, keeping your hand right in front of you. That's like our problems, they're, like, smashed right in front of our face, like omelette on our face. And everywhere we look, that's what we're seeing. And then we're trying to chip away at them and make them disappear. And you know what? That's never going to happen. Because you can't just eliminate all the problems and somehow have confidence. No, you got to be going towards something. And then on the way, you're pushing past or overcoming or letting go of those problems on the way to something else. Does that make sense? That's like the old kind of classic example of someone smoking and they want to stop smoking. They can't just stop smoking. They have to stop smoking and replace it with something else with a new activity that meets needs. Perhaps running, perhaps something else being part of a gym or ideally something physically healthy. But do you get the point here? We can't just focus on the problem. We got to focus on the solution. We got to say, where do I want to get to? And that's what we dive into. Inside of confidence unleashed. It's what is your confidence target? And there's a whole several videos in module one about that. But let's do a mini version of that right now. What is your confidence target? If you had, and this is a question I love to ask people, is if you could wave a realistic magic wand and have all the confidence that you wanted, just abundance of confidence in yourself, what would your life look like? What would you be doing differently? What comes up for you when I ask that question? Now, if doubt comes up, that's not possible. I don't know, how would I even get there? We'll get to that in a minute. See if you can just put that aside and just really imagine if I really had that confidence, what would it be? What would I do? How would I interact with people? How would you walk into a room? How would you join into groups of people? How would you be at work? Do you do sales? How would you be in sales? Do you speak up in meetings? How would you speak up in meetings? Would you be a leader, think even bigger, think even further down the line? Not just this month, but what about five years from now? If you had that confidence every day, what would your relationships look like? How would you, would you walk up to women that you're attracted to and start dating more? Would you have an amazing girlfriend? Would you have a wife? Would you have a family? What are your confidence targets? Because we got to know what we're going for, we got to know what we want. And even if you aren't entirely sure, you're just like, I just want more confidence. Well, usually we want to do something with that confidence. I mean, sure, we want to feel good about ourselves. And maybe that's part of your target. It's like, well, I wouldn't be doubting myself. I wouldn't be second guessing myself. That's a great target, too. And with that certainty in yourself, what would you be doing in your life? How would you be enjoying your life more? How would you be trusting in yourself more? So what are your confidence targets? Great. And another thing we dive into in the program is aiming higher. Because when I do this with people face to face, they go for maybe 50% of what they really want. Or they're like, yeah, that would be great to be able to talk to women. Sure, that would be awesome. That's not what they really want. But they really want us to be able to walk up to any woman that they're attracted to and start a conversation and have it go well and get a number or have it not go the way they want and then walk away and still feel great about themselves. And then they want to be able to date several women and find an awesome one and have her be their girlfriend. And it's an amazing, beautiful woman that's funny and sweet and intelligent that just rocks their world. That's what they want. But they don't tell me that right away. I got to kind of draw it out of them. Now why wouldn't we say what we really want right from the beginning? Because it's scary, right? Scary about what am I going to have to do to get it? Oh my God, I can't do that. We have all this identity crap that comes up. I'm not good enough, not going to work for me. All that stuff gets in the way, right? So what is it that you want? Can you make it really clear for yourself? And then what gets in the way? In fact, that's what we're going to do in a minute. We're going to dive into what gets in the way, what stops you from going after. But first we have to have these confidence targets. So we're going to take a quick break right now and when we get back, we're going to look at the obstacles and how to blast through them. But first things first, I wanted to help you get clear on that target. And during the break, think about it, keep playing with it in your mind. What is it that I really, really want? If I had the confidence. Stay tuned. We'll be right back right after this.
Do you want to rapidly change the way you see yourself? Do you want more confidence and better results in your life? If so, then you need to learn about cognitive rescripting. It's one of the most powerful tools that Dr. Aziz teaches. He is so adamant about everyone learning this life transforming tool that he is actually giving it away for free for a limited time. Go to www.confidenceunleashednow.com to claim your free copy of Dr. Z's new eBook and audio training program called Rewrite youe three Steps to Triple your Confidence.
Welcome back. So did anything shift? Did you come up with anything cool? Maybe you already have. Maybe you already have a great vision for what it is that you want with my more confidence. And some people say, well, my goal is to get rid of social anxiety, to not have social anxiety. And that's good, that's a start. But I still don't know what that means. What do you replace it with? What would it look like? You know, what social anxiety looks like, feels like, smells like, tastes like, tastes like pain. Right? But what does confidence feel like, look like? So I'm not going to belabor the point, but that's exactly what we need to do, is we need to focus on where we want to get to. Then we got to look at what gets in the way, and that's what we're going to do right now. First and foremost, the thing that gets in the way before anything else, before fear, before all that stuff, is we're stuck in the passenger seat in life. I mean, I was for many years. Almost everyone that I work with on some level, is starting out in the passenger seat. Maybe not in all areas of their life, but definitely in this area of social confidence, confidence in themselves, work confidence, dating confidence. Whatever area they're working on with me, usually it turns out they're working on all areas of confidence because they realize soon after talking to me that it's all connected. But it's. How do we get out of the passenger seat and into the driver's seat? And here's what I mean. In the passenger seat, you don't have any control. You're just going wherever the driver wants to go. I mean, maybe you can ask him to take you somewhere or request it or. Or complain about it, but you ultimately don't have any control. The driver is deciding where you go. And I found so many people, and I know I did this for years, approach life in the passenger seat as if there's someone else driving, and that someone else is maybe a rotating character. My boss determines this. My partner, my wife, my husband determines this. My friends determine this. Those strangers determine this. Other people determine how I feel, what I do, what I pursue in my life, how much I enjoy myself. Other people determine everything. And it puts us in this victim stance where we're just the passenger. We're stuck, we're frustrated. I would do that, but I can't because of this and I can't because of that. Or we're the passenger in our own emotions, or we're the passenger in our own. I would do that, but I can't because I have this, or I'm not good enough or all that stuff. Whatever it is, it puts us into the passenger seat, where we forget that we have control and that we are choosing where to go. You are driving. Well, let's see here. You're always driving. It's the illusion that you're in the passenger seat. You might have let go of the wheel. You might be pretending you're in the passenger seat, but you Are driving. Where you are in your life right now is a result of the decisions and the choices that you've made up until this point. And you can choose differently. And I don't necessarily mean choosing what to do. That's one thing. But you can choose what you focus on in a given moment. And then you can also choose the meaning that you give an event. So when you go talk to someone and they don't seem that interested in talking to you, you can focus on them and their experience and maybe their eyebrows going down and them looking like they're judging you. Or you can focus on how you showed up and were just put yourself out there. You can focus on the result that, oh, they didn't like me. Or you can focus on the fact that I took action. And then you can choose to give it meanings, right? You can say, they didn't like me, therefore I suck, therefore I'm a loser. I was too much of this. I wasn't enough of that. I shouldn't have said that. What was wrong with me? I'm an idiot. Or you can choose to make it mean something entirely different. I don't know what's going on with that person. I was warm and friendly. They had a looks like I pushed one of their buttons. I was talking with someone a little while back, and he said that he asked a barista at a coffee shop. He was talking with her and she said, I'm in college. And he said, what's your major? And she said, oh, I hate that question. And he was telling me, he's like, oh, I shouldn't have asked that. I was like, wait, what? That's a perfectly reasonable question to ask someone. They say they're in college. What are you studying? What's the big deal? Now she's got a button that you pushed. And so you can choose to make it mean, I messed up. I should have known I shouldn't ask that question. Or you could choose to make it mean, wow, she's sensitive about that. And then you could. When you're bold and you've unleashed your confidence, you can actually push it a little further, say, whoa, looks like I pushed one of your buttons. Don't ask you about a major. Interesting. Sounds like it's going real well for you. I mean, I might just tease her a little bit. So that's just an example. But when you give it a different meaning, then you can choose to do something different. You can choose to approach someone again. You can choose to make a joke. You can choose to lean in further you can choose to ask again, you can choose to do all kinds of things, but the key word here is choice. You are in the driver's seat, and if you have any doubt about that, if you're like, nah, it doesn't feel that way. I know, I understand that, and I wish I had more time to get into that now, but there's a bunch of stuff I want to cover, and if you want to go deeper, we'll talk more about it in a little bit. But you got to check out the new version of Confidence Unleashed. It's on an incredible sale right now, during this. This launch, this opening. So now is the time to jump in on it, and you're gonna learn all of the stuff that I'm. I mean, this is. We have 25 minutes together here today, something like that. I mean, that program is like nine modules, and I don't even know how long it is. Maybe 12 hours of stuff, of really in depth with a workbook and all that stuff. So if you want to go much deeper, check that out. But that's the first thing, is we gotta get in the driver's seat. The second thing is you. Okay, so there's. There's layers, and I've seen this in working with people. There's layers of protection that prevent you from living the life that you want, from having the confidence that you want. And the outermost layer is what I call excuses. And these are all the things that put us in the passenger seat. I would, but. And then we focus on something external, like, there's no attractive women in my town. People over when they get over 30 don't want to make new friends. Everyone at my work is closed off and a jerk. I can't get a better career because I didn't grow up in the right family. I didn't have the right upbringing. I don't have the right connections. So it's like putting stuff on the outside world. That's the layer of excuses. That's the passenger seat thing. We've been talking about the next layer of protection. So if you bust through the excuses and say, you know what? Fuck that. I'm the driver of my life. If the circumstances aren't, I can decide to respond to them differently and try something different. I'm flexible, I'm fluid. I'm like water. I'm gonna find a way around it. Just say you adopted that. That would be awesome if you did. Now you break through the excuses. You're not there yet. Guess what you bump into then. Ah, what? The excuses. Were protecting you from. So you can think about. Each layer is like protecting from something deeper. So you got the excuses, you break through the excuses, and now you get to a deeper layer. Stories. Stories. Stories are the things that you say about you that stop you, not the outside world. Like, things like, I'm not good enough. I'm not attract. I'm ugly, I'm boring, I'm stupid, I'm clumsy, I'm awkward, I'm not skilled enough. I should be better than I am somehow. And then there's a list. You could just go on and on. The stories are the negative things you say about yourself, the limiting things. And there's all kinds of stories. There's stories about your identity, like who I am, I'm a shy person. What does someone say? Someone said to me recently, I'm a nervous person. And someone else said, oh, I could go out, but I'm shy. So this is how it's going to go, and this is how I'll be. And I said, are you sure you have to show up that way? And I just kind of paused and it was just introducing the idea of reinventing yourself, of flexibility, of that you're not just one way. And trust me, I've shown up one way in my life, and I've shown up an entirely different way, and I'm still Aziz. So what does that mean? I mean, it means that there's such an incredible flexibility inside of you that you don't have to show up shy. That's just a pattern. That's not who you are. So there's this identity story. There's also stories of ability, like, oh, I'm not capable to do that. I can't do that. I'm not good enough to do that. I would never be able to learn that. And man, we have some just horrible BS Stories of ability that are totally false, that basically are all based upon I don't want to look bad, I don't want to fail. They have nothing to do with your ability. I mean, little kids who don't care about failing and looking bad can learn stuff like crazy and incredibly quickly. And we can too, when we throw ourselves into it. But we have all these stories of ability. I'm not good enough. So those are stories. Beneath that is another layer. And we're take a quick break. We're going to dive into what that layer is and then how to blast through all of this stuff. So stay tuned. We'll be right back right after this.
No, I can't. I'm not good Enough. No one will like me. You're so ugly. Why would anyone pay you more? No, I can't. I'm not good enough. No one will like me. Tired of the same old loop in your brain? Are you ready for something different? Positive thinking won't get you there. You need to systematically dismantle your old toxic ideas and profoundly shift your mindset. Join Dr. Aziz in confidence Unleashed as he guides you through dozens of powerful exercises to transform your confidence on the deepest level. Go to confidenceunleashednow.com to get your copy today.
Welcome back. So what's underneath? We got excuses. Underneath that, we got stories. What's underneath your story? Let's just say you stop believing I'm not attractive, or those people don't want to talk to me, or this person's gonna say no when I ask, you know, have a sales conversation or sales presentation. Let's say you eliminated that story. Then what are you more likely to do? That's right. Go have the sales conversation. Go talk to those people. Go ask that woman out. And then what happens if you imagine doing that right now, Imagine going out and doing that thing that the story was telling you that you couldn't do, that you're not capable of, that you're not good enough, that it's not who you are. Imagine just going and doing it. What happens then? Yeah, now we're getting down into it. Fear. Fear happens. Then. That's the layer beneath stories. So excuses are protecting us from stories. Stories are protecting us from fear. And that's really the main thing. And feeling fear is horribly unpleasant. We don't like it. We want to avoid it. We want to avoid situations that create fear. It's a natural human impulse. It's built into our nervous system. So we have to override that, though, because if you live your life avoiding fear, that's not a life that's surviving. And you're going to be miserable, or maybe not horribly, abjectly miserable, because you can distract yourself enough with TV and hanging out on the weekend with some friends if you're lucky enough to have that or. Or getting drunk or getting high or whatever, you can block it somehow. You can try to minimize it somehow, but there's gonna be an emptiness inside because you're not living fully. And you know that on some level. And so we have to face our fears. We have to break through our fears. And there are so many ways to do that. In fact, inside of Confidence Unleashed, the new version of the program, there's an entire module, like an entire maybe oh, God. Almost like an hour or more dedicated to how to overcome fear, how to blast through fear. Just dozens of techniques and exercises and activities. By the end of that, you'll be, like, vibrating with power in yourself to blast through. And this program is not a passive learning thing where you just kind of watch it and like, huh, those are some interesting intellectual ideas. No, it is about action, because that is the way through fear. I mean, there's some powerful techniques I'll share with you. How to release fear, how to build up courage and power in the face of fear. And then ultimately, though, the whole program and this whole show and the whole thing I'm trying to do in this world is designed to get you into action because you can break through fear at home and get energized. And really, you really can. You will in the program, like, release a fear, feel way more powerful than you ever have. But then you got to get out there and you got to do it. You got to go take that action that scares you. I mean, it's the simplest thing, and it is the most true thing, and it is the reason that people do not succeed. Now, I was just talking to someone yesterday, and they were interested in working with me in a group, and they were really excited about it. And he said, but, you know, I really have a lot of doubts because I've done stuff in the past and it didn't work out, and I'm scared about getting my hopes up. I said, great, what have you done? He's like, well, I read this book and I did this, and I did therapy, and I read this, and I was like, great, that sounds like you've done a lot of inside work. How much have you put into action? What action have you taken? And he's like, ah, well, that's where my challenge is. And I said, well, it's no surprise to me that you haven't had the progress that you want, the results that you want. Because you can read 5,000 books on this subject, and if you don't put it into action, nothing's going to change. I mean, maybe some insight will help, but, you know, it's just not gonna. It's not gonna produce a lasting shift in your life. Decisive action is what changes your life. It's what changes you. It's what transforms you. And if you take that decisive action, enough fear just disappears. Fear is obliterated. Now. It doesn't mean that it doesn't come up again when you reach the next level. But the thing that used to scare you no longer Scares you or it's there, there's a little bit of fear, a little bit of nervousness, but you just push right past it and it's no big deal. That's how you unleash your confidence, is by taking that radical action in the face of fear. And in order to get, I mean, this show, there's only so much I can do to help you get there. I think working with me is a powerful way to do that if you really want to take that step. But an intermediate step, like a smaller commitment than working with me, because it's a big commitment of time, money, energy, focus. Sometimes people fly out here for weekend intensives if we're doing that, but. Or sometimes people just do Skype from all over the world. But regardless, there's another way, which is with this program, Confidence unleashed. Let me just talk with you for just a minute about that program because it contains the keys for you to break through to a higher level of confidence than you've ever experienced. And I absolutely guarantee that. I mean, I think this program is rocket fuel. It's ultra powerful. Right now we're doing the launch so you can check it out. You can get it. If you're not totally satisfied, if he doesn't produce amazing results for you, then you can just return it with no questions asked. That's how much I believe in the stuff in this program because I've seen it work with people face to face. This isn't some theory, this isn't some intellectual idea that I'm testing out. This is stuff that I've done and I've seen it produce powerful results in myself and then in many clients that I've worked with face to face over the phone, via Skype, in groups, all over the place. So we're going to dive into helping you set really clear confidence targets, aiming higher, removing all the BS that stops you from believing in yourself. To be able to create amazing, exciting goals that juice you because you want to have a compelling future that excites you. That's how you're going to motivate yourself. And there's a whole section on self compassion. You're going to let go of the toxic way of motivating yourself through self criticism. You're going to release that crap and be able to motivate yourself to, through excitement, through enthusiasm, through inspiration and energy. Then we're going to help you get into the driver's seat of your life so you feel in control, in charge, certain in yourself. You're going to see the needs that are Driving you underneath and how to let go of needing to cling to safety. You're going to learn about your safety. Police. This is the force inside you that is keeping you small, that is keeping you stuck. Those are all the voices in your head that tell you you can't, that criticize you, that say you're not good enough, that say that people won't like you. You're going to learn how to blast through all of those. Then we're going to get into the modules where we eliminate toxic stories and replace them with more empowering stories. What would your life be like if instead of when you got to a social situation, whether it was in business, in a meeting, at a party, wherever, on the street, any interaction with people, instead of a sense of they're not going to like me, it's not going to go well, I'm kind of boring, or whatever your old BS stories are. What if you showed up with a story that was like, people love me and everyone likes talking to me. I'm incredibly charming and people love. I'm charismatic. I'm a charismatic leader and people love talking to me. What if not only was that your story, your belief, but that was true for you, like you installed it in a way that it felt true for you. That's what we do in the third module of this program, is eliminate all those BS stories. Then now that we've removed stories, guess what we got to focus on? That's right. Fear. So we're going to help you shred through fear and unleash a courage and a boldness and a power that you may have never felt in your life. I mean, this program is very active. We use your body. We have a workbook. So we help you unlock and unleash all of this stuff. Then we get into the applied sections of the program. So you have all this raw power and all these goals that you have, and you've released the stories. You've overcome fear, you have confidence. Now, how do we apply it in business, in sales conversations, in meetings, in showing up as a leader in your work, in assertiveness? Then we also apply it in dating and relationships. Even if you're already in a relationship, you're already married, there's going to be powerful stuff in there about how to show up with more masculine power in yourself, more confidence in yourself, more certainty, or if you're looking to meet someone, there's great stuff in there as well for that. There's a bunch of applied sections as well in the second part of the program. And Then we look at kind of expanding it to your entire life and how to bring everything full circle. So that's just a. You can tell how excited I am about it, how enthusiastic. So to check it out, go to confidenceunleashednow.com that's confidenceunleashednow.com find out more about it. You can get on a waiting list for it. And I'm not sure when you're listening to this, too. You might be able to actually get it, too. It was during the launch dates. And if you're listening to this episode way later, then go check it out. The program will still be available during this launch. It's way less of an investment than it will be later. But no matter what the investment is, I mean, this is worth. You know, I had a video editor. Let me share one more last thing about this. I had a video editor who was editing all these videos. He's not working on this stuff. I mean, he doesn't consider himself that shy. He's got a wife. He's a regular guy. And he was working on this program and he came to me and he said, aziz, thank you for letting me edit this. And I was like, you're welcome. Thank you for doing it. And he said, I didn't really consider myself shy or something. And he's like, this tremendously benefited me in my own business, my own relationship. And he said this. He's like, I've done some therapy. He's like, this is better than a year of therapy. And he was really enthusiastic, and I was really appreciative that he got so much out of it. And it was, like, affirming to me. I was like, yes, it works. And I mean, a year of therapy is like, I don't know, like $7,000 maybe, give or take, maybe more. So, I mean, yes, there's. And I honestly depends upon your therapist. Right. Someone might not know all this stuff. So anyway, we're way over time here. Let's end with. If you want to check out this program, go to Confidence Unleashed now dot com. And let's end with your action step. Your action step for today is to look at what layer is holding you back. Is it excuses? Are you telling yourself stuff about the outside world, how you're not in control, how you're a victim of circumstance? Is it more about you? Is it about stories? I'm not good enough? Identity stories? I can't. That's not who I am. People don't like me. I'm not attractive. Or stories of ability. I can't I'm not good enough, I'll fail. Is it stories that's getting in your way? Is it just raw fear like you've seen through the stories? You want to take action and then just fear stops you. And whichever it is, find out where it is and bust through it. Go to the next layer and then take action. Action is the antidote. Action will free you. Action is the way to break through all of this BS and all of this garb. The more action you take, the more free that you'll become. So thanks for joining me here today. Share what you're learning, what's working for you. Go to facebook.com social confidence. You can also go to shrinkforthshyguy.com and if you want to check out the program during the launch here, go to confidenceunleashednow.com I'd love to see you inside of that program. There's all kinds of extra stuff we're going to be doing, including follow up bonus calls for the first people that join. So by all means go check that out. And I'd love to see you inside of those calls and maybe one day work with you in person. Because the one thing I want you to take away from today and from this show and from any conversations and communications that you and I have is it's absolutely possible, it's absolutely possible to get more confidence in yourself. Don't believe anything in your mind that tells you otherwise. Guess what that is? A story. An identity story. Oh, this is just how I am. Or an ability story. Oh, maybe it's possible for other people, but I can't. So shed that shit. Let it go. And I'd love to help you on that journey and I'd love to just interact with you whether you want to work together or not. You just want to share your story with me. I always love to hear that. So until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.
Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.










